1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for the storage of a plurality of compact discs in which retrieval of a selected disc is performed by designating the compact disc desired through an electronic input to the system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Compact disc filers or containers have been developed in which a plurality of compact discs are stored in separate compartments within a single case. Such conventional devices typically employ a spring-loaded mechanism which is depressed and latched when the compact disc is inserted. When a particular compact disc is to be retrieved, the user must locate the proper enclosure and manually operate a mechanical trigger associated with the particular compartment in which the desired compact disc is located. Manual actuation of the trigger releases the spring mechanism and causes the compact disc to be expelled or partially expelled from the enclosure in which it is kept.
While the retrieval of a compact disc in this manner is easily achieved, the location of the proper compartment is much more difficult. This is particularly true in the case of storage systems for compact discs containing musical selections since often a collector of musical DCs may be quite voluminous. Due to the narrow size of compact discs, it is difficult to label each compartment with an indicia adequately identifying the particular compact disc stored therein. Rather, conventional systems for large collections of compact discs typically require the use of a written or printed list of the titles of the compact discs, sorted in alphabetic or some other logical order, followed by an identification of the particular enclosure in which the compact disc is located. The compartment indicia may be a number which fits more easily into the space available to identify each compartment. Even so, numerical indicia of compartments must still be quite small in order to fit into the space available.
Moreover, each time one compact disc in added to the unit, or each time a compact disc is removed, the printed list must be updated. The task of maintaining an updated listing of the compact discs in the CD filer housing, and a correlated identification number of the specific compart in which each disc is located is an arduous, time consuming task. As a consequence, a printed list is often out of date, thus creating problems in locating a particular compact disc in the CD filer from among all of the compacts discs stored therein.